In 2003, the ministry of health in Turkey launched the Health Transformation Program (HTP), a 10-year health reform with the main goal to provide universal health coverage to all, especially the poor, amongst strengthening primary care services and expanding hospital capacity to improve health outcomes. Indeed, the
has increased about 41.5 percent since 2002 and reached 98.8 percent by 2021. Health insurance is now mandatory for all under Turkey’s General Health Insurance (Genel Sağlık Sigortası, GSS) scheme with those earning under a certain threshold receiving free health care.
Health care expenditure
In the past few years, the country’ spending on healthcare as a percentage of GDP has been generally decreasing,
which positioned the nation in last place amongst other OECD-European countries in 2021. As of 2022,
Turkey’s expenditure on healthcare as a share of GDP hit the lowest value since 2000, totaling only four percent. Despite this,
total health expenditure has been steadily increasing throughout the past years and stood at nearly 354 billion Turkish lira in 2021 (approximately 19 billion U.S. dollars).
Health care resources
The general trend over the preceding 11 years has shown a rise in the
number of hospitals in Turkey except for 2020, where a small decrease was observed. However, in 2021, the figures increased again, reaching a peak value of about 1.55 thousand. In the same year, there were over 157.7 thousand
hospital beds in public hospitals and almost 54 thousand in private hospitals; both figures have gone up year-on-year since 2000. Moreover, there were roughly
183.6 thousand health care physicians employed in Turkey that same year. That equated to roughly
461 citizens per physician and 364 citizens to each nurse.
Public opinion on health care
Despite all the progress, in 2023 slightly over one-third of surveyed individuals in Turkey thought the
quality of health care they have access to was good or very good. Furthermore, about two-third of the respondents agreed that
many people in Turkey could not afford good health care. Nevertheless, national health outcomes are still on a positive trend, with
life expectancy at birthgenerally increasing and
infant mortality rate decreasing.
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